290 WARWICKSHIRE HUNT. 



Conipton, and ran him to ground at Foxcote, the seat of 

 the late Mr. Francis Canning. 1 



The latter part of this capital run from Ditchford, 

 about five miles, was decidedly the most severe thing 

 I ever witnessed. Of the pace and severity of the burst 

 the horses bore ample testimony, as out of a numerous 

 and well-mounted field, there were only three well up at 

 the death, namely — that well-known good old Sportsman, 

 Mr. Smith, of Broadway, on his chcsnut mare ; Mr. F. 

 Woodward, of Cummerton, on his bay horse ; and Boxall, 



1 Smoking out tlie fox is a practice but seldom, if ever, now 

 attempted. We saw an experiment of tliis kind tried, some years 

 since, by tlie Hon. Newton Fellowes. Reynard liad been found in a 

 very strong gorse cover, a compact almost imytenetrable mass of furze 

 of four or five acres, not a single ride through it. It was a wet drizzly 

 morning, and he kept them dodging about the cover for two hours, 

 before they could get him aivay. After taking a ring from the wood 

 for about an liour, he took to ground, in a sough within a field or two 

 of the place Avhere he first started. The terriers were sent for, and in 

 the interim the sough was broken up a consideiable way from the 

 mouth, without effect. A young Sportsman endeavoured to persuade 

 the Master to smoke liim out, and at last he reluctantly consented. 

 Some straw and a lanthern Here procured from the next farm house ; 

 the straw was then jjut into the mouth of the drain, and set on fire ; 

 but reynard did not bolt. A rough haired terrier was then brought 

 into the field, and after a good deal of encouragement from his Master, 

 entered the drain, and soon brought poor reynard out, dead ; he had 

 been suffocated. IMr. Fellowes, holding up the fox by his hind legs, 

 and darting an indignant look at the stripling in scarlet, angrily 

 exclaimed — ' Here's your smoking works.' The horses used in the 

 field in north Devon, where the broad double hedges are too high 

 to be topi)ed, are little compact animals, seldom more than fifteen 

 hands and an inch high. The fine noble hunters from this part of the 

 country cannot live with them. They jump up and down, to get 

 through the hedges; and the country in general is so hilly, that a 

 famous hunter here, would be compelled to give in there, by a horse 

 not worth one fourth of his value. The leaps, and the hilly nature 

 of the country, with their weight, beat them out of the field. 



